Robert Rapier is a chemical engineer in the energy industry. He has 25 years of international engineering experience in the chemical, oil and gas, and renewable energy industries, and holds several patents related to his work. His site www.rrapier.com fosters civil, objective discussions on energy and environmental issues.
I believe that the loss of industry players Solyndra, Evergreen, and SpectraWatt opens the market for more innovative solar companies to succeed with smarter tactics…
I have just returned from the annual ASPO conference in Washington, D.C. This was only my 2nd ASPO conference; the first one I attended was…
Like many of you, I have been following the debate over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would bring crude from the oil sands of…
This past week PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel — who was also an early investor in Facebook — made headlines when he declared that “Cleantech is…
Study: Coal-Fired Power Plants Emit Pollutants That Keep the Earth CoolLast week a new study reported that replacing coal with natural gas might actually worsen…
When Barack Obama was campaigning for president, I thought he displayed a “comic book” view of the energy industry: Lots of stereotypes of the good…
Like many of you, I am often unhappy with our political leaders. One thing that annoys me the most is that many will say or…
Normally, consumers consider falling oil and gasoline prices to be good news. They have to pay less to fill up their tanks. And if the…
In my travels around the globe, I have never been to another country that regards their oil companies as we do here in the U.S.…
The Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century has just released their annual Renewables 2011 Global Status Report. I was one of the reviewers…
BP recently released their highly respected annual Statistical Review of World Energy for 2011. Most of the news stories on the report have focused on…
I was recently asked to participate in an energy roundtable at Focus on China’s Energy Future and the Shale Gas Question. It is no secret…
Just over a year ago, I wrote an article called Is Camelina the Next Jatropha? If you recall, a few years ago jatropha was all…
I have often thought that if all domestic oil production and refining ceased in this country for a month, we would see an energy epiphany…
The following guest essay was written by Dr. Felix Mormann from Stanford Law School. Dr. Felix’s research focuses on the regulatory and policy challenges of…
This essay highlights the reason I loathe politics. Here I present a case in which politicians present a partial story and withhold key findings in…
As I noted in a previous essay, rising gas prices inevitably mean that our political leaders start looking to assign blame. The annual ritual has…
The reason that oil company profits are so volatile is that sometimes the price of oil becomes pretty disconnected from the cost to produce it…
It is no secret that consumers are suffering from very high gasoline prices. And as a result of these high prices, ExxonMobil just reported a…
Summer is approaching, and that typically means rising gas prices. And when gas prices rise, our political leaders generally start looking around for someone to…